Jose Padua: The Summer of Rock and Other Fragile Ecstasies
But it was also another summer of war,
the way just about every summer is a summer of war.
Baron Wormser: Groovy
It’s fair to say that “groovy” has passed out of daily parlance. As words go, it was a bit silly, a bit mystic, a bit glib, a bit droll, a bit low-brow, a bit artless, and a bit wonderful. It spoke to an era and seemed, accordingly, germane to that era and almost sensible in its glad frankness.
Desne A. Crossley: A Wallflower and Her Mother
Clueless about west coast Whiteness, for sure. For my anxious mother, this meant I needed her singular brand of watchful encouragement to grow into a whole person, a whole woman—and to be taught some street smarts for life in suburban Palo Alto with its unfamiliar patterns and pitfalls.
Barbara Crooker: Car Hop
I made seventy-five cents an hour, plus tips. All those shiny quarters. Some went down the throat of the jukebox—96 Tears, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, Reach Out / I’ll Be There.
Baron Wormser: Five Easy Pieces
Bobby has the dis-ease that is bred in the easy-going yet overbearing ways of his nation.
Susan Farrell: Why Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to college graduates still matters today
If Vonnegut was, like the students’ fathers, a family man and a veteran, perhaps he also embodied the dad that students in 1969 dreamed their own fathers could be: funny, artistic, anti-establishment and anti-war.
Richard Cambridge: In Medias Res
Tom, the eldest son of Daniel and Helen Brownson, tells his parents he has dropped out of college. He is now in the crosshairs of the draft board and will be re-classified 1-A — a good chance he will be sent to — and possibly die in Vietnam.
Paul Christensen: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Twit
I used to wander around on lower Broadway in Manhattan when I was still a teenager. I had a dead-end job at a valve company taking orders from plumbers wanting a gate valve or oversized coupling for an apartment building going up.
Woody Lewis: Guns Under the Bed (book review)
Anyone who protested the Vietnam war will appreciate the candor of Jody Forrester’s memoir.
Joan E. Bauer: A Thousand Pigeons
Robbie, Paul & I met Carlin at the Hamburger Hamlet in Westwood in 1970. Carlin had a big laugh & shiny hair, but behind the jokes, a serious guy. He … Continue reading
Leonard Steinhorn: Donald Trump’s War on the 1960s
Donald Trump and his supporters may be waging battles against the press, immigrants, voting rights, the environment, science, social welfare programs, Planned Parenthood and what they label political correctness and the … Continue reading
